Join me on my latest hiking trip to one of the most spectacular mountain and amazing nature in Slovenia.
Triglav is the highest peak in Slovenia and the highest peak in Julian Alps. And it is by far the most important Slovenian mountain. It's silhuete is part of Slovenian flag and it is so important to our small nation, that we are thought since young age, that you need to climb it at least once in a life time to become a real Slovenian!
It all started in 1894 when Jakob Aljaž, a local priest, got the idea of buying the peak for one Austro-Hungarian gulden (goldinar). Later he ordered a small iron tower covered with zinc to be build and brought all the way up to the summit at 2864m. It was placed on August 7, 1895 and ever since it is one of the most important place for Slovenian nation. The tower got it's name after the first owner - Aljaž Tower.
The tower was so well build, that in all these years it survived extreme weather conditions with 2-3m of snow, blizzards, extreme winds and colds, it also survived the "coloring" war between the Italians and Slovenians and also thousands and thousands of hiker visiting it every year!
The most rough times for the tower were at the end of world war 1, when Italy got western part of Slovenian territory and Triglav became a bordering mountain with both sides claiming the tower for themselves. That's when the "coloring" war started. The Italians colored the tower to green. Later the Slovenians colored it to the red/white/blue colors. The color switched couple of times until one time Slovenians painted it back to original color - grey.
Later in the second world war Triglav with Aljaž tower felt under Germans and Italians. At that time it was a very popular hiking destination for many Germans and (again) Italians. After the war and the creation of Yugoslavia, Triglav became the highest peek in newly formed country and is since than a popular destination for many hikers in the Balkan area even though the Yugoslavia split in the 1991. One of the most iconic photo of Aljaž tower is when Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. It was winter of January 1991, only a top of a tower was looking out of the snow and a group of people took our new flag to the tower in celebration of our independence.
Since than Triglav visits more and more people every year. Many of those comes from foreign countries and you have to reserve a place in surrounding huts at least few week in advance if you want to sleep over.
Triglav was on my wish list years before i even started hiking, and this year me and couple of friends decided that it is time. It is time to become a real Slovenian. So we climbed on top of it at the end of August.
Triglav can be done as a one day hike, if you choose one of the shortest routes. But instead of doing it fast, we decided to take it slow and enjoy it as much as possible. So we took 2 of the longest routes starting and ending at the beautiful Bohinj lake.
I've got lots of photos which i will be sharing in the next posts about this trip. Photos of amazing Triglav lakes which are absolutely spectacular to see, as well as close photos of an Alpine wild goat family which was as surprised as we were :)
Thank you for reading! All photos are taken by me and are Steemit exclusive!
If you missed my previous hiking days you can find them here:
#1. Hiking day - Kamnik–Savinja Alps
#2. Hiking day - surviving a thunderstorm on the peak of 2000m high mountain
#3. Hiking day - seeing how global warming is wiping the glacier. Flowers instead of ice!
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